Tax Time

Last year, I decided to pursue a dream that I have had for a while. I wanted to work for myself. After spending a decade and a half in the Congress and a couple of years working for a large trade association, I took the opportunity to open my own strategic consulting shop.

Now, the good news about opening a consulting shop is that you don’t need a lot of overhead. I have thought about hiring a couple of employees, but I am concerned about the excess costs associated with that process.

My tax burden is one of the biggest excess costs. I get killed with taxes. I basically pay half my income to Uncle Sam. It is ridiculous.

The tax bite hurts especially in the first quarter. I have to pay both my quarterly payments and my tax bill from 2007. It really hurts.

There is no way I can hire anybody to help me now because of the tax bite.

Take my example, and multiply it by the tens of thousands of small-business owners who are hamstrung in hiring because they have to pay half their income to pay the taxes.

These small-business owners don’t feel rich. They feel pressure. The pressure from the tax collector, from their customers, from their vendors, from their families.

But to Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, these are the rich folks they want to target once President Bush leaves office, his veto pen in hand.

Raising taxes in a recession is insane. Voting for those people who would raise taxes in a recession is stupid.